Getting Biblical
by Kimberly T
Summary: Two more sections added! A compilation of facts and useful stuff about gargoyles that I put together to keep my stories straight, and free for anyone to use as source material.
1. Getting Biblical 1: Gargoyle Biology

**GETTING BIBLICAL**

By Kimberly T. (e-mail: kimbertow -at- yahoo dot com )

Greetings to all Gargoyles fanfiction readers! This is my fanfic universe's version of the "Gargoyles Bible." It is _not_ a "Who's Who" for the entire universe; sorry, but that would take way too long to type. Besides, it's been done before and better than I'll ever have time for, by Todd Jensen; check out his Guide to the Gargoyles Universe, available from the Gargoyles-Fans' website's "Grimorum Arcanorum" section. I am merely sharing with you most of the facts I've researched and set down on paper (or electrons) in order to keep consistency as stories are written. Most of it is comprised of facts that were established in the show; the rest is comprised of my logical extrapolations from those facts.

I want to stress right from the start that some of the stuff I've put down here doesn't _quite_ match up with Todd Jensen's Guide, or what tidbits of information Greg Weisman has dispensed to fans on Station 8's "Ask Greg" webpages and at the Gatherings. Part of that is because I confess I didn't thoroughly read and memorize the Station 8 webpages before I started creating my particular fanfic universe. I didn't even _find_ the first version of Todd Jensen's Guide until nearly a year after starting my series. And I've never gone to a Gathering (my husband, a total non-fan, says we have to spend our money on more trivial matters such as the mortgage and groceries.) Part of it is also that I just thought a few things would work better for my fanfiction if they were slightly, just _slightly_, different than the accepted canon.

**GARGOYLE BIOLOGY**

**Baseline Comparison To Humans**

Gargoyles are roughly, pound for pound, five times stronger than the average human of similar height and weight. Their bones and skin are tougher than human skin and bone, so they can take more punishment before breaking/bleeding. The talons that tip each digit of their hands and feet are both sharp and extremely durable, and combined with their great strength are capable of punching through stone or metal.

Their senses of smell and hearing are far sharper than a human's, equivalent in range and sensitivity to that of a typical feline (not quite as sharp as a typical canine's senses, but close).

Their sense of touch is generally on a par with the average human's, and extends to every limb. The membranes and struts of their wings are sensitive enough to feel changes in air currents while gliding.

Their eyesight is far, far sharper than a human's, equivalent to an eagle or peregrine falcon's eyesight, and very light-sensitive. They also see ever-so-slightly into the infrared range. On the downside, they are blinded by light at lesser levels of intensity than the average human.

Gargoyle reflexes are roughly at 150 of the average human's reflexes; in other words they respond to stimulus (i.e. danger) in 2/3 of the time it would take the average human to do so. (Assuming, of course, they aren't utterly stunned or confused by whatever is threatening them; moving fast doesn't always mean they think fast.)

Gargoyles are omnivorous but lean towards carnivorous, requiring a much higher level of protein in their diet than humans generally do. There are no vegetarian gargoyles, unless they're allowed all the eggs and milk they want (and they'll want a _lot_.) Generally speaking, they eat about twice what a human of similar size would need in order to sustain himself for rigorous activity.

Gargoyles can swim, but they don't float very well; they either have to keep moving, rapidly treading water, or extend their wings to make a larger floating surface area (built-in life raft!)

**Stone Sleep**

Gargoyles spend the day in 'stone sleep', their bodies transformed from dawn to dusk into a substance that greatly resembles common granite.

The stonelike substance absorbs solar radiation and transforms it into cell energy, for when gargoyles awaken. This keeps their food intake down to roughly twice that of the average human's, instead of six or seven times that, for the energy to glide and power their feats of strength and generally accelerated metabolism.

Stone sleep is tied to the diurnal cycle, _not_ to actual exposure to solar radiation; a gargoyle indoors or underground will still go to stone sleep when dawn comes to the world immediately outside, and wake up at sunset. Nor will they turn to stone at night if somebody shines a sunlamp on them, though they may feel somewhat lethargic.

Gargoyles do not age in their transformed state. This extends their lifespan to over twice that of a human; 200-year-old gargoyles are not unheard of. (Definitely _rare_, due to their harsh lifestyle, but not unheard of.)

A gargoyle in stone form has no sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, etc… Not even a sense of time passing.

Gargoyles can dream in their stone sleep, though they generally do not remember the dreams, any more than humans untrained in lucid dreaming will remember all their dreams.

A very thin outer layer of the stonelike substance, equivalent to the outer dead layer of skin in a human's epidermis, does not convert back to flesh at sunset, and is broken and shed by the gargoyle awakening. (This used to rip the heck out of their clothes, until a kindly and exceedingly modest mage _waaaay_ back in ancient times cast a spell that allowed a gargoyle's clothing and personal effects to transform back and forth with him/her without harm. The spell has spread throughout all the gargoyles of the world by some means as yet unexplained; I'm guessing spell-seeds were tossed up into the Trade Winds that circle the globe.)

At sunset, when transforming back to flesh-and-blood, they awaken healed from nearly any injury that may have been suffered the night before. Note 'nearly'; an amputated limb will not be regrown, though if the limb is sutured back in place _immediately_ by a highly skilled surgeon, before the limb starts decaying, a sunrise and sunset will probably see it restored to full or nearly full function.

A wounded limb still attached but so badly mangled that it's no longer fed by an adequate blood supply (in a human, it would be prime for gangrene), will fall off and crumble to dust upon awakening at sunset. The remaining stump will be sealed over by new flesh, as if the amputation had occurred several days ago.

Broken bones not set properly before sunrise may heal crookedly, and the gargoyle may end up crippled for life unless the bone is re-broken and re-set before the next sunrise.

Healing extensive injuries takes a lot of energy, and the gargoyle who has just woken up healed will be weak and hungry until he/she has replenished that energy with larger than usual amounts of food.

A wound caused _directly_ by magic (Hudson's eye, blasted by the Archmage) may not heal without a healing spell in addition to stone sleep, but if the wound is caused _indirectly_ by magic (for example, magic animating a tree limb that swings out and breaks somebody's wing) it will heal as normally.

Damage done to the stone form will be reflected in the flesh when the gargoyle wakes up; a chip or crack will become a wound upon awakening. Breaking or smashing a stone gargoyle apart will kill him/her.

**Breeding, Bonding And Eggs**

The fertility of gargoyle females is on a twenty-five year cycle, beginning with their fortieth year of life (roughly human equivalent to human twenty-year-olds.) _This is the first seriously non-canonical item. Virtually every other author that has the gargoyles tied to a specific breeding cycle (instead of just breeding whenever the clan wants and is ready to have more eggs) agrees that the breeding cycle comes every twenty years. But if they did, then the eggs hatched two Breeding Moons ago would be only thirty-year-old gargoyles, and Angela and her rookery sisters would have already mated and bred eggs while still on Avalon! _

_And if one had to wait three full Breeding moons, sixty years, until the eggs laid and hatched are now fifty years old, for the next generation to breed… Sorry, that's just too long for my series' purposes. But if the Breeding Moons are twenty-five years apart, at thirty-nine years out of the shell when leaving Avalon, Angela's got a little more time to pick and choose a mate before her biology starts demanding it_.

The Breeding Moon will occur in late autumn of the appropriate year, and eggs bred then will be laid six months later, in the spring.

The gargoyles' breeding season is _appallingly_ brief for their incredibly long reproductive cycle, lasting usually only the four nights of the full moon.

When the Breeding Moon arrives, the female's instincts upon awakening at dusk are to fly as fast and far and high as possible, to ensure that only the strongest and fastest male catches her, to breed strong, fast and healthy hatchlings for the next generation. However, being civilized people, the gargoyles usually ensure that breeding pairs are isolated from the clan's unmated males the dawn before the Breeding Moon rises, so only the female's mate flies with her. And a mature female who is prepared for the event can override her instincts to some degree, enough so slow down a little if her mate is normally slower than she is. These breeding flights usually conclude with the couple mating in midair.

At the laying time, the female gargoyle's pelvis actually unhinges at the spine, in order to allow the giant egg to pass through the birthing canal. (Hurts like a m#$#f&$!, too.) Each breeding female lays only one egg, though _very_ rare exceptions (laying two eggs, or one huge double-yolked egg) have been heard of.

The shell of the fresh-laid egg is soft and somewhat pliable until after dawn following the night it is laid; then it hardens to stone, and stays that way until hatching. The developing infant inside will turn to stone and back with each sunrise and sunset, just as the adults do.

Gargoyles eggs take ten years to hatch into infant gargoyles. At their hatching, they are roughly equivalent to the physical development of six-month-old human babies: able to roll over on their own, almost able to sit up without aid, and able to digest soft solids. They'll begin crawling (and teething!) within two months of hatching.

Gargoyles are generally monogamous and mate for life, and they will bond to their mates in a form of pheromonal 'imprinting'. A male gargoyle who has fully bonded to a female will have a slight change in his scent, having been 'marked' as hers, and vice versa. This will send off subconscious signals of 'off the market' to other, unmated gargoyles if they get close enough to get a good whiff.

The pheromonal imprinting also ties the males more closely to their chosen females' fertility cues. This is why, in my "Life Goes On" series, Goliath has a real hard time (pun intended) every month when Elisa's human biological cycle makes her fertile. He's imprinted to her as his chosen mate, and his body is responding to his mate's fertility with unabashed horniness, and raw aggression whenever another male is nearby. (Yes, he was once imprinted to Demona and she to him, but it wore off during that thousand years they were apart.)

However, this pheromone marking does not mean that a female separated from her mate during the Breeding Moon will not be driven to seek out another male to breed with; during those few nights, that biological clock is ticking REAL LOUD. And any nearby male, even one already bonded to another female, will go nuts with horniness if he's close enough to get a whiff of her fertility scent.

Gargoyles and humans are not naturally interfertile. (Note I said 'naturally.' Magic and those pesky Fey can throw every biological rule out the window, from stone sleep to fertility and breeding cycles. In point of fact, a magical/supernatural incident once triggered an unexpected breeding season for an entire clan; read "The Times, They Are a-Changin'… Part 2" for the story on that.)

**Items of (ahem) Interest**

Gargoyles have every erogenous zone that humans have, and a few extra. The areas of the back right along and between the wing joints are _very_ sensitive, as sensitive as the inner thighs and groin area of the average human. It's just as sensitive for males as it is for females, and both sexes refer to this erogenous zone as the _crewenn_. (Hey, we have names and nicknames for all our most sensitive parts; why shouldn't they?)

The base of the spine right above the tail is also somewhat erogenous, though not as sensitive as the crewenn.

A gargoyle can do _amazing_ things with a fully prehensile tail.

**Death (and Dismemberment)**

Note: I'm using the Red Cross standard definitions of clinical death (heart stops beating) and biological death (cells of the body are dying.) A man whose heart has just been stopped, though clinically dead, might be revived; that's the whole point behind CPR. After ten minutes, biological death sets in and revival is next to impossible, except in hypothermic drowning cases.

Biological death triggers a rapid transformation/decay in gargoyle flesh; it converts to the stonelike substance again but quickly crumbles into fine gravel and dust. (This explains why there's no fossil record of prehistoric gargoyles.) Biological death generally occurs about ten minutes after the heart stops, but severe violent trauma (say, being ripped in half) will bring it on sooner.

A severed limb that is not immediately reattached will start to 'gravelize' in about ten minutes, unless it is packed in ice to preserve it.

Gargoyles killed while still asleep (the stone form smashed) will stay in whatever fragments remain after the initial damage is done, instead of disintegrating into gravel.

**GARGOYLE BEASTS, A.K.A. WATCHBEASTS**

Watchbeasts have all the capabilities of gargoyles regarding stone sleep, but they don't have wings. The gargoyles of Wyvern Clan have a legend that explains why; read my story "Faith, Hope and Love" for the whole story.

Watchbeasts are considered by gargoyles to be full clan members, not merely pets.

Watchbeasts are generally _much_ more intelligent than the canines and felines they roughly resemble; they are at roughly the same level of intelligence as a gorilla or chimpanzee. (Without speech or manipulative hands, though, they have a hard time showing it.)

Watchbeasts can understand many words and phrases of human/gargoyle speech, but do not have the vocal apparatus for speaking themselves.

Watchbeast eggs are somewhat smaller and darker than gargoyle eggs, but are laid and hatch at the same times. A watchbeast female can and often does lay more than one egg at the same time, but never more than two eggs.

Watchbeasts have roughly half the lifespan of a gargoyle, living to roughly a hundred years of age. They come into season at the first Breeding Moon after hatching, when only fifteen years of age, though usually laying only one egg for the first breeding cycle.

Watchbeasts have a poorer sense of sight than gargoyles; still just as light-sensitive, but with not as much range for farsightedness. On the other paw, watchbeasts have keener senses of smell and hearing, better than the average gargoyle's, and far better than the best bloodhound ever born.

_Next: Gargoyle Culture and Psychology_


	2. Getting Biblical 2: Culture & Psychology

**GARGOYLE CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY**

Gargoyle culture will, to some extent, mimic the culture of the humans they live near. But there are some universal customs/social laws, caused mostly by their biology and psychological needs:

GARGOYLES PROTECT. Gargoyles have a very strong territorial imperative, and they protect all members of their clan, whether fellow gargoyle or human, within their territory/protectorate. Gargoyles who have formed an alliance with a large enough group of humans (say, an entire castle or village's worth of people) will generally come to consider any human within their territory, even total strangers, as worthy of and needing their protection.

Gargoyles are highly social creatures, living in clans with very strong interpersonal bonds. Unkind people might say they have a 'pack instinct', though that isn't quite accurate. Still, the instincts to seek companionship and to obey the clan leader are deeply ingrained in gargoyle psychology.

A friendly human or Fey can become part of a gargoyle clan, though not easily. But once accepted into the clan, they are as valued and trusted as any gargoyle.

Gargoyles generally have very little hierarchy to the clan structure. However, they will always have a leader, and a second-in-command (chosen by the leader) who can step in to lead if the leader is away or incapacitated/killed.

Beyond Leader and Second, they loosely divide themselves into two classes: warriors (which may be male or female) and rookery keepers (which also may be male or female). But even rookery keepers receive some warrior training, and clan members may transition from one role to the other with relative ease throughout their lives.

Large enough clans may decide to sub-classify further than Warrior and Rookery Keeper, and bestow titles on others such as Teachers or Mentors (a more common title for elders), Healers, Hunters, Fishers, and Bards/Storytellers.

Since the eggs of the clan are all bred at roughly the same time, and all hatch at roughly the same time, hatchlings are all raised together, treated as children of all the clan together. (This is very sensible, since not every male or female has the temperament to raise hatchlings well. And in the ten years between hatching and laying, many egg-parents may die in battle or from other causes; in raising all the hatchlings together, no clan has orphans.) Individual parents in certain clans may recognize their own young and vice versa, but they will generally not play favorites as a result; the rule of all hatchlings being raised together by the clan rookery keepers still applies.

Since eggs are laid on a 25-year cycle, most clans have developed a three-staged approach to their society. From their hatching (ten years after their laying) to their fifteenth year, young gargoyles are referred to as "hatchlings" and kept mostly in the clan's rookery or in designated outdoor play areas, with rookery keepers on hand at all times to care for them and keep them out from underfoot of the rest of the clan. In their fifteenth year, they are moved out of the rookery to make room for the eggs about to be laid by the clan adults.

At roughly the developmental level of eight-year-old human children, these young gargoyles will now begin their training as warriors or rookery keepers, or other apprenticeships available in the larger clans. Basically, they start going to school. This training will continue until at least their thirtieth year of life, when gargoyles generally become sexually mature enough to start choosing their mates.

Some clans declare the young gargoyles to be adults by their thirtieth year, and grant them full adulthood status and responsibilities at that time even though they are not yet old enough to breed eggs; the Wyvern clan practiced that custom. By contrast, the Ishimura clan considers young gargoyles to be _gakuto_ (literally, 'students') until his or her thirty-ninth year, the year before their first Breeding Moon, although _gakuto_ are allowed and even expected to choose their mates between their thirtieth and thirty-ninth years. Either way, all gargoyles are considered fully responsible adults by their fortieth year out of the shell.

Most clans such as the medieval Wyvern Clan teach their trainee gargoyles what they need to know to be warriors or rookery keepers or whatever through mentoring and apprenticeship; one full adult will take on one to four pupils at a time.

The Ishimura Clan, on the other hand, gives its _gakuto_ a much more formalized education for the first ten years or so, teaching the principles of Bushido, Japanese literature, mathematics and basics of nature sciences, and the basics of combat with all the students together in a classroom-like environment. After they have all learned the basics, they are assigned apprenticeships for more job-specific learning, such as Healer, Warrior, Storykeeper (Bard), Rookery Keeper, Fisher, etc., but will still gather for a few hours every night for formal instruction.

Crime is rare among gargoyles, because greed is virtually a foreign concept to them; most gargoyles own no more than they carry around with them, their clothes and weapons, and they have no use for money. (But note that an item may become treasured if it has sentimental value, i.e., having been given to them by a well-loved human.) However, instances of betraying the clan's trust, needlessly disobeying the clan leader, and cruelty to hatchlings are all considered _very_ serious crimes. Overaggressive behavior (picking fights) is a more common, less serious crime.

For minor crimes, gargoyles are punished by either being tasked with sweeping up all the clan's gravel and stone shards (which is done every few nights anyway, by the more tidy clans), or being sent to the rookery (implying that the offender is behaving like a hatchling, and needs to grow up; very humiliating). Temporary banishment is a more harsh punishment reserved for the more serious gargoyle crimes, usually for short periods ranging from four nights to a full moon's cycle. The worst punishment gargoyles can inflict upon one of their own is _permanent _banishment; many would prefer to be killed outright instead, rather than be alone and clanless for the rest of their lives.

A gargoyle forced away from the company of other gargoyles for an indefinite period of time will seek another creature to form a clan-bond with (human, Fey, stray dog, _whatever_), with increasing desperation for each passing night; being too long alone will cause them to become mentally unbalanced. (Yes, that's one reason why Demona's so crackers; one of many.) The company of another creature will help to stabilize them, but if the companion is non-gargoyle the gargoyle will start to take on more of the other person's/race's psychological characteristics.

Kissing was not originally a gargoyle custom, though many clans have adopted it from human societies as a gesture of affection. It doesn't always work out too well, though, considering that a significant percentage of gargoyles have beaks or muzzles instead of human-style mouths. However, beaked or muzzled gargoyles gain some pleasure from rubbing said prominent facial features up against each other, something like a cat rubbing its whiskers against a beloved human.

A more common gesture of affection, appropriate not just for mates but for showing filial affection as well, is to brush one's knuckles against the other's brow ridges, or other facial ridges such as chin spurs.

Gently running one's talons through a gargoyle's mane is another gesture of great affection; rookery keepers do it all the time with their hatchling charges, but once they're grown and out of the rookery, the gesture is usually reserved for mates and courting couples. For the many gargoyles who don't have manes, lightly stroking the scalp is an equivalent gesture.

Gargoyles are generally monogamous and mate for life, though rare exceptions to both rules are known.

Gargoyle generally choose their mates from among their own rookery generation, though matings between different generations are not unheard of. Uncommon, but not nearly as rare as taking multiple mates or dismating (divorcing).

The customs for gargoyle mating ceremonies differ from clan to clan, but nearly always conclude with a mating flight, the newly mated pair gliding off some distance from the clan's home and mating in midair. This is done partly in order to practice for the breeding season; mating in midair is risky business, and couples want to make sure their later egg-making efforts won't end in a possibly fatal crash.

On the average, rookery generations end up with a few more males than females. Thus, an unmated gargoyle male finding sexual companionship with a human female is frowned upon, but tolerated. But if the human female has already been accepted as a clan member, and/or the male's scent changes to indicate the 'bonding' scent-marker, the pair will be accepted as proper mates.

On the other hand, an unmated female seeking companionship with a human male is not so easily tolerated, particularly as the Breeding Moon draws near. Such a female would probably face the utter condemnation of her clan if she did not, at the very least, accept a gargoyle male for breeding an egg with while she is fertile.

The reproductive drive is one of the few things that can normally override a gargoyle's instinct to stay within his/her home territory and stay with the clan. A gargoyle who can find no mate within his/her clan often leaves for a while, a couple years before the Breeding Moon is due, hoping to find a suitable gargoyle in another clan. (Generally speaking, the mate-seekers are males, for reasons already stated.) But if no mate can be found, after a while the gargoyle will return to the home clan; having companionship with rookery kin is better than nothing at all.

Not many gargoyle warriors survive to old age; most will die in battle, and some in fact would say they prefer it to growing old and infirm. But in gargoyle societies, the elderly and infirm are not cast aside; they will be taken off warrior duties, but then will either become rookery keepers, tending eggs and young hatchlings, or tutors and mentors to half-grown gargoyles just out of the rookery, helping them develop their hunting and warrior skills. Passing on a lifetime's worth of knowledge is considered a very honorable duty.

A gargoyle in utter despair can commit suicide by taking flight just before dawn and staying aloft, turning to stone in midair, so his stone form will be smashed upon falling to earth. This is euphemistically referred to as "greeting your last sunrise."

NEXT: Snippets of History


	3. Getting Biblical 3: Snippets of History

**Snippets of HISTORY**

Mostly these are bits of information that the show didn't mention, but logically must have taken place, at least according to the fanfic I'm writing. And I don't really feel like wasting the time and energy to find a good way to shoehorn these particular facts into my stories, without making it obvious that they're being shoehorned in. One can do only so many explanatory flashbacks in a story before the reader loses track of what's supposed to be going on.

* * *

**The Inland Clan**

The Wyvern Clan was not the only clan in Scotland back in the ninth and tenth centuries. In fact, at some point before Wyvern Castle was completed, the clan was so large that it had to split, before they outgrew their ability to support themselves by hunting and fishing in their claimed territory. Half the clan migrated inland, taking over half of the clan's watchbeasts with them since they were more comfortable away from the water. They just might have settled near Loch Ness, to become the clan Sevarius thought existed in the episode "Monsters", or they might have gone elsewhere; this author ain't ready to say yet. But the offshoot clan survived in Scotland, hiding quite well from an increasingly intolerant human population, until at least the nineteenth century. (They might even still be surviving today; again, this author ain't saying yet.) The London clan knew of them, which is why Griff, upon meeting Goliath back during WWII, guessed he was of "Scottish stock."

**The Lincoln Clan (and their Connection to Other Clans)**

The London clan has feathered wings and the heads (and a few other bodily characteristics) of animals, due to a spell cast on them back in the Dark Ages by Merlin; a transforming spell, to protect the clan from a slaughter like what had happened to Wyvern. Everyone figured that if they looked like angels instead of devils, the local humans would look on them more favorably. But since they'd only heard of angels from overhearing humans, and had never actually seen a picture of one, well… Read "Revelations of the Labyrinth Pt.4: Guests and Pasts" for the full story.

Sometime in the late 8th century AD, roughly a hundred years after the transforming spell, the London Clan was large enough that it needed to split just as the Wyvern clan had done, with roughly a third of them traveling north to find new territory. The new splinter clan thrived for centuries in an area close to what's now the city of Lincoln. And they were eventually joined by a few gargoyles from the Scottish clans, who had wandered looking for mates.

The Scottish gargoyles interbred with the English gargoyles, and as a result some of their hatchlings had feathered wings but mixed-up color schemes that just aren't found on the animals they were patterned after (red cats, blue eagles, etc.) and some of them had leather-wings instead. And once the local priests really noticed the gargoyles who didn't look like angels, the jig was up, and the persecution began again. It was this clan that drew the attention of the first Canmore, after he was banished from Scotland in the eleventh century. Canmore gained the support of the local nobility and incited the English people to slaughter that clan, before turning his attention to Scotland once more.

Not all the Lincoln clan was killed, though; some of them escaped the slaughter, and wandered in hope of finding other clans that would take them in. Some of them went south to London, to join the original clan still thriving there; others went elsewhere. Two of them, a bovine-looking female gargoyle and a snake-bodied male gargoyle, encountered Merlin (still alive and kicking after all those centuries, and doing some wandering of his own). Merlin had the gift of prophecy, though it was unreliable at best, and had a vision that told him these gargoyles' destinies lay far from their native shore.

He magically transported the female to Kyushu, an island in Japan, where resided the Yatsushiro Clan. (_More will be said about this clan in a later story_.) The female mated and bred with one of the males in the clan, and one of her descendants eventually went up to Ishimura, carrying a few of the feather-wing genes with him. This explains why Yama's wings look so different than the standard gargoyle wings. After several generations of breeding diluting the gene stock, the feathers are gone, but a few vestigial scales remain at the base of the wings where they attach to the spine, and he lacks wing-talons just as all feather-winged gargoyles do.

The feather-winged and snake-bodied male gargoyle was magically transported to Guatemala, and he arrived just in time to prevent the gargoyle clan living there from being destroyed in conflict with the humans who lived there; the gargoyles recognized and accepted him as a gargoyle, but the humans nearly worshipped him on the spot, seeing him as an avatar of Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent and one of their major deities.

His arrival saved the clan and promoted much friendlier relations between the humans and gargoyles, so much so that a Mayan magic-user forged the Sun Amulet and the four pendants in order to enable Zafiro's ancestor, his mate among the gargoyles and two "attendants" to stay awake during the day. (The humans thought it was so "Quetzalcoatl" could hear and answer their prayers and worship 24 hours a day; the gargoyles thought it was so they could protect themselves 24 hours a day. Either way, everybody thought it was a great idea.)

When the Mayans died out and were replaced by the Aztecs, the next generations of "Quetzalcoatl" again enabled the gargoyles to maintain healthy relations with the humans. But when the Spanish explorers came and started subjugating the native human populations, slaughtering thousands in warfare and slavery and hundreds of thousands more by introducing smallpox and other diseases, the gargoyles went into hiding. The last Aztec mage cast a great spell before dying of smallpox, that caused the rainforest surrounding their Mayan pyramid home to grow nearly tenfold overnight, choking out all the roads so no path led to it and rendering the pyramid nearly invisible to view except from directly overhead.

The gargoyles knew well that the foliage was hiding them from the Spanish conquistadors, and so protecting their home evolved to include 'protecting the Green,' preventing deforestation by unsuspecting humans. They hid their home well until 1993, when a party of looters found the Mayan temple they dwelled in and slaughtered most of the gargoyles in their stone sleep, while the four pendant wearers were, ironically/tragically, out patrolling the rest of the Green.

**The Schwarzwald Clan**

A clan of gargoyles once lived in the depths of the Black Forest or Schwarzwald, a wooded mountain range in what is now called Baden-Württemberg, a southwest region of Germany. They were a fairly large clan, and were known to a couple of the human villages that lived on the perimeter of the forest, but forged no alliance pact with any village in the way that Wyvern Clan did; the villagers feared them because of their 'demonic' appearance, and they didn't bother trying to correct that impression. Back before the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, the Schwarzwald stretched for miles across mountainous terrain and was considered nearly impenetrable anyway. The humans left the gargoyles alone, the gargoyles left the humans alone, and that was that.

Demona left Scotland after betraying Macbeth and witnessing the slaughter of her Outcast Clan, and wandered the continent for many years before stumbling upon the Schwarzwald Clan early in the 14th century (1327, 1328; she doesn't remember the exact year.) The Schwarzwald Clan didn't know about her being under a magic spell of immortality, and might not have cared much if they knew, either. With their horrendously long breeding cycle and resulting very low birth rate, any clan would welcome a breeding-age female who might contribute an egg to the rookery at the next Breeding Moon, so long as she promises to behave herself (and Demona did.) They welcomed her and took her in, and for the next couple of decades, she found happiness again.

Then came the Black Death of 1347-1348. The Plague swept through Europe like a thunderstorm, striking everywhere and wiping out nearly a third of the population; old and young, saints and sinners alike, nobody could escape it. It is the nature of Humanity to try to find some way to explain everything, especially every tragedy, even if the only explanation they can scrape up is "The Lord works in Mysterious Ways." Since, after frantic praying and praising and outright begging God to stop the Black Death wasn't noticeably working, people decided that the Plague was God's way of punishing them. Why was He punishing them? Because they hadn't driven out the evil in their midst…

That last paragraph wasn't fiction; that was _History_, folks. There's plenty of historical documentation about villagers stoning prostitutes to death, slitting the throats of Jews, and burning suspected 'witches' at the stake; doing what they thought would avert God's wrath from them. Naturally, it didn't work. So who else could they blame?

In my fic'verse, they blamed the gargoyles. Those demonic-looking creatures that lived deep within the Schwarzwald; surely they were real demons, and God would not stop the Plague until they were all sent back to Hell! In the spring of 1348, two villages combined forces and marched into the Schwarzwald, armed with whatever weapons they could find, and they smashed the entire clan in their stone sleep. Even the heavily pregnant gargoyle females, since the clan had enjoyed a breeding season the previous autumn; none were spared.

Demona was among them at the time, and was pregnant as well; the immortality spell revived her at sunset, but she miscarried the egg. This is another reason why she's so obsessive about Angela. In the past, once a gargoyle female laid her egg she turned it over to the rookery, to be raised by the clan. So even if an egg was smashed or a hatchling was killed, no one female bore the brunt of the tragedy. But in miscarrying the egg she'd been preparing to lay, Demona most definitely lost a child. That tends to unhinge any mother, and it's quite common for a grieving mother to be extremely protective of any remaining children. Even after all this time, Demona still privately grieves, and fears of losing again.

After that clan was slaughtered Demona went north, and two years later, while a second wave of the Black Death swept through Europe, she encountered Macbeth in Denmark. Over the last four years Macbeth had also seen death on all sides; he'd seen village after village become nearly wiped out by the Plague, with himself as one of the few survivors and in one small hamlet's case, the only survivor. Sick and tired of seeing Death on everyone's face but his own, he tried to kill Demona and thereby himself, and nearly succeeded; she was still so depressed that she hardly put up a fight at all.

But their fight was interrupted, by villagers who thought that Demona was a demon that Macbeth had summoned, and attacked both of them at once. A spear through Demona's heart brought both her and Macbeth down, and the villagers threw both their seemingly dead bodies onto a pyre for burning. The immortality spell woke them up just as the flames caught. The villagers scattered as the flaming gargoyle sprang into the sky and the flaming man ran bellowing into the streets, and that was the last Demona and Macbeth saw of each other for several hundred years.

NEXT: Speaking in Tongues


	4. Getting Biblical 4: Speaking in Tongues

SPEAKING IN TONGUES 

Demona cast a spell out of the Grimorum Arcanorum the night before the final stone of the castle was set into place to break/complete the sleeping spell on the gargoyles. The spell she read over the gargoyle statues was a language acquisition spell, so the gargoyles would awaken speaking 20th-century English instead of 10th-century Scottish Gaelic. The spell worked on all of them, but was most effective on younger and more malleable minds, for the same reasons that youngsters usually catch onto learning a foreign language faster than their elders. This explains why the Trio were able to instantly grasp so many idiomatic phrases and slang terms that glided right over Goliath and Hudson's heads.

When Avalon sends a person or people to 'where they need to be' via one of its magical skiffs, a language acquisition spell is bestowed upon the skiff riders: they will find themselves able to fluently speak the dominant language of whatever land they are sent to. This explains why Goliath, Elisa and Angela had no problems getting around Guatemala, Japan, Prague, etc. (English may be a popular second language to learn in foreign schools, but not _that _popular.)

The spell takes effect subconsciously; the skiff rider will not even realize he/she is speaking a foreign language unless he/she tries to express a concept that the new language has no word for. The spell remains in effect as long as they stay in that land, but dissipates (and the language skills acquired with it) once they move on. Once Avalon has finished with leading people around by the prow, to coin a phrase, the submerging of the skiff will make the last application of the spell permanent. The riders have a parting gift, whether or not they ever realize it.


	5. GB5: Dragons and types of Magic

**DRAGONS**

There are, or were, several different species of dragons in existence.

Dragons fit into the "Reptilia" class of the animal kingdom, according to the current method of classifying animals, but they had their own order, separate from the orders of all other known reptiles (Crocodilia includes alligators & crocodiles; Rhynchocephalia includes tuataras; Testudines includes turtles & tortoises; Squamata includes snakes and lizards).

Inside the Class of Reptilia and the Order of Draconis, there was a lot of variation between families and genus and species of dragons. One or two species were huge, twice the size of the average city bus; a few of them were no bigger than the average dog. (Most species sizes ranged somewhere in between.) Some dragons flew; some did not. A few species were intelligent and capable of a form of speech, though most were not. One or two species did indeed breath fire.

One consistency for every species of the order Draconis is that they were all long-lived and had incredibly low birth rates, resulting from a breeding cycle even longer than for gargoyles. Thus when humans began developing weapons and poisons that were effective against them, the dragons' death rate rose high above the birth rate. Most dragon species died out; became extinct.

**TYPES OF MAGIC**

The show itself gave plenty of examples of two types of magic: _mortal magic_, that can be used by humans and gargoyles alike, and _Fey magic_ that can be used only by the Fey.

The Fey are all magic-users to some degree; magic is imbued into their very bodies. The amount of magic power imbued varies from Fey to Fey; some Fey are definitely more powerful than others. Oberon is apparently the most powerful Fey of them all, but Titania's power level is not far behind… and in terms of skill rather than just raw power, she is the more effective magic-user. (Not that she wants Oberon to realize that, of course; she prefers to be 'the power behind the throne'.) Puck is further down the magic scale, but still a very powerful Fey, more powerful than any other known trickster.

Being made of magic, Fey can create and cast spells simply by willing the magic to do as they desire; speech really isn't necessary, except as a way to focus their will for spells requiring delicate work or a large amount of magical energy. (For example, all of them can levitate without saying a word, but will likely speak a spell when transforming someone.) When speech is used for magical manipulation, many of the Fey will put their speech in rhyme; it seems to make the magic run more smoothly.

Only a very small percentage of the population, for both humans and gargoyles, are capable of mortal magic. The ability to manipulate mortal magic is tied to a specific genetic sequence that doesn't occur very often (different genes for humans versus gargoyles, of course.) And mortal magic is a different form of energy than Fey magic.

Mortal magic-users generally manipulate magic with the aid of a magical talisman or device of some sort; a conduit to allow the mage to channel the energy without harm. There are various schools of mortal magic, that manipulate magical forces by various means. The school of mortal magic pictured in the show had spells that must be spoken in Latin; the same language that the Grimorum Arcanorum was written in. But other means of mortal magic manipulation do exist.

There is also a third type of magic, in addition to mortal magic and Fey magic: _Dragon magic_. A few draconic species also contained a genetic sequence that allowed them to manipulate a different type of magic… magic on a different frequency, one could say.

There were actually a few varieties of nonsentient dragon that possessed magic-manipulating ability; most never used it, but one particular species became fire-breathers. (FYI, it was the nonsentient fire-breathers, toasting the countryside at random, who gave all dragons such a bad reputation, and started Humanity's millennia-long war with the dragons that wiped out so many draconic species.) Generally, though, the ability to manipulate dragon magic was confined to the intelligent species of dragons.

It is very dangerous to attempt to mix the different types of magic. In the cases of mortal magic and Fey magic, the problem is one of _synergy_. Synergy is the interaction of two or more elements so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects would have been. (Like mixing alcohol with other depressant drugs; some people have ended up comatose or even dead as a result.)

When even a little mortal magic is added to Fey magic or vice versa, the combined effect isn't added; it's multiplied and squared. Such spells generally spin wildly out of control, and can result in cataclysmic disaster.

On the other hand, when dragon magic is added to either Fey or mortal magic, the problem is one of cross-reaction or opposition. The effect isn't one of addition; it's subtraction or division, in generally unpredictable ways. Whatever the hoped-for result was, it will probably end in a wimpy little fizzle… if it doesn't _explode_.


	6. Getting Biblical 6: the Praying Gargoyle

**MAGICAL TALISMANS**

Most magical constructs are capable of being used only by a Fey, a magic-using dragon or a magic-using human or gargoyle. But it is possible to create a magical construct that is so powerful, and so 'hair-trigger', that even a mortal who does not possess the magic-manipulation gene sequence can use it.

The talismans known as the Eye of Odin and the Phoenix Gate are such two magical constructs. The spell to open the way to Avalon is another. But in truth, it's not the spell-words themselves that posesses the magic. The magical mists that lie between Avalon and the mortal realm are keyed to respond to those words, wherever and whenever they are spoken; they will create a conduit to the island from whatever body of water is in closest proximity to the speaker of those words.

I'm not going to give details on all the different magical talismans that were used in the show; the people who organized the gargoyles-fans website already have a webpage that does that quite nicely (go to www dot gargoyles-fans dot org, slash characters slash magic dot htm) But there's one talisman that they failed to mention:

**THE PRAYING GARGOYLE**

_Just as with all the other sections of "Getting Biblical," part of what's written here is canon from the show, part of it is gleaned from the wee tidbits of information Greg Weisman doled out in the Station 8 "Ask Greg" archives, and the rest is either deduced and extrapolated from those bits of information, or just plain made up by yours truly._

The Praying Gargoyle is an artifact from ancient Atlantis, several thousand years old.

Atlantis was indeed a thriving civilization, with magic and technology working side by side to give all its inhabitants a better life. Atlantis was home to people of four different intelligent races: humans, Fey, gargoyles and sentient dragons. It was more-or-less destroyed and sank under the waves in a cataclysm caused by an out-of-control spell that mixed mortal and Fey magics (See, Owen was right; doing that is a really bad idea!)

Sometime before the cataclysm, the Praying Gargoyle was created by unknown parties. The creators used stone dust made from a gargoyle's stone skin, powdered Atlantean crystal, and a whopping amount of mortal magic. They designed a magical talisman to be used solely by and for the protection of gargoyles.

The Praying Gargoyle is not a 'one-trick pony'. The magic that is contained within it and channeled through it can be used in a variety of ways by a skilled gargoyle mage. But all the spells must be for the protection of gargoyles; the talisman will not allow any other.

There is a price that a mage must pay for using the Praying Gargoyle; some portion of his/her own life force. The amount of life force demanded depends on the 'impact area' of the spell. A spell designed to protect a single clan of gargoyles for just a night and a day would probably shave a year or two off the spell-caster's lifespan. A spell designed to last centuries or to protect gargoyles all over the world would certainly drain the caster of all his/her life energies, killing him/her on the spot. (Yes, Demona knew of this price when she was preparing to use it during "Hunter's Moon". She was counting on the spell of immortality cast on her by the Weird Sisters to revive her, as it's done countless times before.)

The Praying Gargoyle has been destroyed several times over the millennia. But each time, it slowly heals itself. (Yes, it heals, not rebuilds. Think about it.) The process takes roughly sixty years, but once it's finished, the talisman is ready for use and as powerful as ever.

oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo

_I first published this Guide back in October 2001, with roughly two-thirds of the information that's presented here in this edition. These are all the facts and snippets of history I wanted to share with readers outside of the stories I'll be telling. (More backstory will certainly be told as the series progresses, but the pertinent characters will do the storytelling, and it will likely be historical data that should remain exclusive to my 'verse, instead of available to all.)_

_Any author who wishes to use this material in their own stories, may do so with my blessing. _

_Kimberly T._


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